CharonY

Maybe to a part. Also it depends on how much exposure the individual has with foreign nations. I found this kind of attitude to be less prevalent in the academia. A surprising number of US grad students here have been abroad for quite some time. And I can easily pick them up visually, as they cringe when someone makes a statement like that:

There are generally more mechanisms around (e.g. mobile genetic elements) that increase the size of the genome, though depending on the organism not everything ends up in the chromosomes. It also depends on the genomic area. Highly conserved areas which cover essential functions rarely get changed. Or more precisely, if something happens there it may lead to a reduction in fitness and as such it is not stable over generations. And that is the second thing you should keep track of, while thinking about it: stability. Something might get inserted in the genome, but if it is not in a germ cell, it will get lost. If it is in germ cell it may get lost if it reduces fitness to the carrier, regardless whether there are insertions or deletions. It also depends on the organisms. For small ones, like bacteria an insertion has a larger cost associated with it (the relative energy required to synthesize the additional bit of DNA) than for a very large one. So there is selective pressure to maintain a small genome, unless the new bit increases fitness. Then those that lost it will be selected against. For measuring genome size there are a number of techniques out there. The easiest is probably pulseö-field gel electrophoresis, but restriction maps are a bit more accurate.

Just btw. and off-topic using the word kung fu as if it was a martial arts style kind of annoys me (a pet peeve of mine). What precisely is meant (e.g. I used to learn hsing-i chuan)? For a general term "Chinese martial arts" is actually more accurate than saying kung fu (which basically means something like "ability or technique" in a more general sense). Of course one could argue that this term has been westernized so much that it has changed its meaning in the western worlds, but it still is wrong. OK that is the rant for the day. Thanks for your patience.

I have to say that this is basically the same also in Germany (which has a mixed public/private system). I do tend to believe that this is less a matter of health care system but rather how efficient and overbooked the given MD is. And of course what kind of patients he/she got the given day.

Hmm, I got a BMI of 20, last time I checked the body fat was around 17 %. However even now I do not really exercise (unless yelling at experiment counts). I do cook what could be considered healthy for the most part, but I do not really follow a diet. In the end however, I won't be able to lift as much as those that train (obviously). On the positive side is that I can use up the time that I would needed for workout to do stuff and be productive, like.... posting on this forum.... darn. I have/had that, too. Coupled with stress I often forgot to eat and actually ignored dizzyness during work. Couple that with long working ours and you got a very bad lifestyle, I can tell you.

Actually if you only use it for water it is highly unlikely that in a short time there will be significant bacterial contamination. Of course if you let it standing around in sunlight algae or cyanobacteria might eventually settle in, but it takes quite a while. If you drink the stuff within a few days you should be fine. Stuff floating around are usually chemical residues (especially if your tap water is very hard) or, if you drink directly from the bottle, they are stuff from your mouth with which you inoculate the bottle. The moment you use them (or fill something in it) they are non-sterile again. On the other hand, if you want to fill them with water and let them stand for a long time before drinking, Hydrogen peroxide is also a (more tasteless) alternative.

I use a PDA but not a cellphone (or smartphone). Except for emergencies that is.

So the point is normal market rules do not apply to health care. Krugman is basing his article on a paper from the 60s, in which much more detail is given. The paper essentially describes that the normal market rules (based on a competitive model) fails to apply to health care and such any assumptions to what a free market should achieve (e.g. cost reduction) would in theory therefore not apply. Maybe this is a point that is easier to discuss. Do free market rules apply to health care? If not, what changes to the model have to be made to allow it still to be an efficient system? Of course, if one disagrees that health care different than any other market one might want to discuss some of the points Krugman or in more detail Arrow made.

That is why I asked for the material. Also if stuff is floating around it does not necessary mean that this are the result of something growing in it.

What was in the bottles before and from what material is it? If it wasn't something really nasty (in which case I would not use it as drinking bottle anyway), I would go with really hot water. A few times maybe. I am not a big fan of disinfecting with bleach.

In most cases data is obtained by model organisms (e.g. certain bacteria, fruit flies, mice etc.) from which mutants are created. The results of altering or, more commonly, inactivation of certain genes is monitored. Obviously this is not done with humans. Generally the animal model is applied to humans and in some cases genetic diseases provide additional clues.

Wait.. it is next month already?

And wouldn't this more be physiology rather than anatomy?

No they don't. We had this discussion earlier somewhere already. There are different tracks to submit and as a member you only need to secure the comments of two referees. In other words, you as author ask others around and need to get two positive comments. Now let's see. You are prominent enough to become member of the academy. It must be awfully hard to find two people to say something nice about your manuscript, no? Also, cell manipulation and lysis in microfluidic channels have zero applications regarding treatments. They are purely analytical devices. Some other references named in this thread do not deal with infectious diseases at all(according to the OP this is supposedly be about viral or bacterial infections).

I think depending on region one or two weeks are not uncommon (in the US). For me it was the same so far. While I was sitting in the waiting room a guy was rejected because he had no insurance. While he had some cash, it probably was not enough. Apparently he had some pain in the legs and was told to go to an emergency room. That being said, I suppose there is also a higher pressure for MDs to make money, given the fact that they leave med school with an average of 200k of debts. I am only wondering why they are not swarming to Germany to become MDs instead (those with good scores that is).

Also, species concepts tend to break down if you look at, e.g. prokaryotes (not that it prevents us from assigning names, that is).

Let's start with the beginning. What precisely do you start with? A knockout yeast and a vector with the complete gene that was knocked out? And there is URA3 in the vector as well as the yeast chromosome? How was the knock out constructed. Was it a plasmid insertion (i.e. plasmid with URA3)?

Ow darn. And I secretly hoped Bradford would have noticed Desmond's scheme after the the DNA-test that revealed that he was the one who peed on his porch. Of course Desmond's identical twin Brad got the blame but I thought that was a bit obvious. I mean with him being a born-again Hindu and such.

Wait a tick, when did Desmond become Charlene's boss?

Depending on the amount of co-pay, however it may lead to the point that people only go to the doctor if something severe is going on. But it may be cheaper and easier to treat when it is still in the annoying but not incapacitating stage...

I think the prestige differs from country to country. Also, in different areas people seem to associate different things if you tell them you are a scientist. For instance, in Germany people (not from the academia, of course) tend to think of you like either like a lab scientist or a kind of medical doctor who does not treat people. Although I have been asked why this or that muscle hurts, I should know, as I am a biological doctor.... In the US on the other hand, most people I have met and told that I am a scientist ask:" oh, so you teach?". And as everyone knows, here being a teacher is not a prestigious job (although it would be in Japan, Korea or China at least).

You are probably thinking of Spaceship one which actually is only able to reach space. A conventional trip to the space station is in the order of 20 millions. And the costs for FTL gateways is even higher.

With regards to the coding sequences: according current ORF (open reading frames) estimations roughly 1-2% of human DNA encode proteins. A sizeable but yet not closely mapped amount will also code for non-coding RNAs (especially the realm of small RNAs is under investigation). And of course a lot of non-coding DNA will be involved in regulatory functions, as Mokele hinted at.

Indeed. It is often confused with saltationism. But as Azure pointed out, it just states that the evolutionary rates are not constant. Depending on perspective (e.g. from the molecular viewpoint) this is for the most part a non-issue.

The Krugman article makes sense to me (sadly), Glenn Beck... less so.